PAY TO PLAY, PLAY TO STAY

I may not vote this time around. And that would be the first time in decades I don’t. When I turned 18, the voting age was still 21. 18-year-olds didn’t get to vote until I was 24. But Nixon still won.

It’s not like it’s difficult to vote. I have a hi-tech, anti-alien, terrorist-preventing driver’s license, so should I be questioned–given my demographic that’s unlikely—I’ll be allowed exercise my inalienable right to touch the screen. Plus, if the weather’s nice, the polling place is within walking distance. And the “crowds” there on a weekday mid-morning, will be more campaign volunteers than would be voters.

Still, why bother? I ask. I live in a very centrist place, for the national offices, the two incumbent D.I.N.O.s have 20 pt. margins in the polls, plus even if they didn’t they—their token R.I.N.O. opponent, too—are all 1%ers or beholden to them. The local elections are as bad, because when running all pols (both D and R, it’s hard to tell them apart locally) talk about improving schools, fighting drugs, creating jobs, upgrading infrastructure, blah-blah-blah, but when seated it’s back to pay to play, play to stay politics as usual.

There are no extremes of anything around here, no mega churches, county clubs or street corner drug markets are in or even near my neighborhood. So I am physically safe from all that; but sadly, I ‘m not safe intellectually; I also live in a global community where my blackout shades and white noise machines can do nothing to protect me from the extremist fear mongers who invade my space; pro and amateur alike, from those paid by the term, to those paid by the click, even to those who just like to hear the voices in their heads spoken aloud, they are all in my face as soon as I tap a remote or screen.

But, still from the safety of my suburban “fortress,” I try to see the silly side of it all—humor as therapy, you should try it—and imagine election season as a windup version of a bumper car demolition derby. But doing that, I can’t help but also see, and here record, the post-party (post-partisan?) after-hours scene where the real owners of the electoral carnival are backstage counting the take and celebrating yet another night of profitably scamming the rubes.

But I think I will vote anyway, in spite of the fact that it will make no difference. Here’s why. I am thinking of Kant and his Categorical Imperative which says, what you want to do (the imperative) is only right if it would be also right if everybody (the category) did it. I kinda think that means while me not voting is meaningless, but everyone not voting isn’t. And who knows, maybe someday an educated/intelligent un-buyable social liberal with enough street smarts to survive the lobbyists and politicians long enough to get some good done may run for office and need my vote. And I’d hate to be out of practice, then.

8 thoughts on “PAY TO PLAY, PLAY TO STAY”

Thanks for the comment; I’m pretty sure I will…
I should explain the USA elections more. Here the major parties are called republican and democrat; there are minor parties too but they never get elected. And there is NEVER a coalition in charge, these days. It’s been a winner-take-all death-match for quite some time.
The Ds and Rs are, as described in the text, beholden to their 1%er patrons; they mostly do as they are told. Rs are slight more so. But during election season both sides pretend to care about “hot button” social/ecological issues that get the fringes to vote; Rs on the conservative side and Ds on the liberal. These issues are then forgotten until the next election.
The acronyms D.I.N.O. (Democrat In Name Only) and R.I.N.O. (Republican In Name Only) are slurs used to insult politicians who are too much like their opposites. Ds who suck up to business too much and R’s who’d vote for tax increases are examples.
So these days, getting nothing done is, sadly, now a requirement of the system, because being responsible for getting something done–akin to consorting with the enemy– would open a pol up to being called a traitor by both the hot button and the big money factions of his or her base, and thereby losing both single issue voters and funds to buy those who are not.
…hope it’s a nice day i can use the exercise.

What if instead having to choose between two equally partisan centrists or not voting at all, we have every registered vote automatically cast and those votes equally distributed among the top 5—or more—candidates as determined by signatures gained door by door, and the only way you could get your vote cast for the person you wanted was to actually cast it yourself?

Some of what you said brought to mind in the early 1980s when I attended a Democratic caucus. My god if I wasn’t turned off by a political operative trying to schmooze his way into my heart. The manner in which he spoke to me, although he obviously wasn’t aware of it, was
clearly to profitably scam a rube.

It’s really hard for me not to see the whole thing as a charade. Differences seem hardly worth talking about. But I do want to vote. Whether the major parties will ever get my vote again though is seriously open to question. Of course, I realize they really could give a damn but then neither do i. 🙂

I usually try to determine the candidate who is the most reactionary social conservative and is therefore the best funded and consequently the favorite to win and vote for whoever I think the person most likely to defeat that corporate lackey. Not that it matters, as I suspect the lesser of two evils is as bad as the greater, but is simply hiding it better. A third party vote could be a good reason for me to get off my butt and walking the mile and a half without encouraging politics as usual.